Sunday, August 17, 2008

This is a relatively beautiful Singapore stamp issued in 1953 to commemorate the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. Queen Elizabeth is married to Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. Her father is King George VI who passed on in 1952.

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

This is a picture of another set of stamps that I acquired in my early days of stamp collecting. I have both a mint set as well as a used set:

Some information about the UPU from Wikipedia:

The Universal Postal Union (UPU, French: Union postale universelle) is an international organization that coordinates postal policies between member nations, and hence the world-wide postal system. Each member country agrees to the same set of terms for conducting international postal duties. Universal Postal Union's headquarters are located in Berne, Switzerland.

Prior to the establishment of the UPU, a country had to conclude a separate postal treaty with each other country that it wished to carry international mail to or from. The United States called for an international postal congress, which was held in 1863. This led Heinrich von Stephan, Royal Prussian and later German Minister for Posts, to found the Universal Postal Union, the second oldest international organization (after the ITU). It was created in 1874, under the name "General Postal Union", as a result of the Treaty of Berne signed on 9 October1874. In 1878, the name was changed to "Universal Postal Union".

The UPU established that

there should be a more or less uniform flat rate to mail a letter anywhere in the world;

postal authorities should give equal treatment to foreign and domestic mail; and

each country should retain all monies it collected for international postage.

One of the most important results of the UPU treaty was that it ceased to be necessary, as it often had been previously, to affix the stamps of any country through which one's letter or package would pass in transit; the UPU provides that stamps of member nations are accepted for the whole international route.

Friday, August 8, 2008

Ordered the following stamps from SingPost. It is to commemorate the Beijing Olympics which starts tonight on 08/08/2008! As you might know, the number 8 is considered auspicious to the chinese as when said in chinese, it sounds like the chinese word for "prosper".

The chinese characters on the 4 stamps show some of Singapore's favorite sports for this olympics namely shooting, badminton, table-tennis and sailing. These are the sports in which Singapore has any chance for bringing a Olympic medal back home.

In the Athens Olympics 2004, paddler Li Jiawei got into the semi-finals but was unable to bring any medal back as she finished fourth.

For badminton, hope is place on Ronald Susilo (Li Jiawei's ex boyfriend).

This year, Lee Wung Yew is also Singapore’s first shooter to qualify for the Games. Two sailors also earned berths for the first time at the Olympics in the 470 men’s and Laser Radial classes.

The nation's hopes are on their shoulders to bring a medal back for Singapore.